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These common symptoms of kidney disease were first described in 1827 by the English physician Richard Bright.[1] It is now known that the symptoms accompany various morbid kidney conditions.[2] Thus, the term Bright's disease is retained strictly for historical application.[3]

This state of acute inflammation may severely limit normal daily activities, and if left unchecked, may lead to one of the chronic forms of Bright's disease. In many cases though, the inflammation is reduced, marked by increased urine output and the gradual disappearance of its albumen and other abnormal by-products. A reduction in edema and a rapid recovery of strength usually follows.

Acute Bright's disease was treated with local depletion (bleeding or blood-letting to reduce blood pressure), warm baths, diuretics, and laxatives. The disease was diagnosed often in diabetic patients. There was no successful treatment for chronic Bright's disease, though dietary modifications were sometimes suggested. See Hay diet, named after William Howard Hay, MD, who suffered from the illness and supposedly cured himself after accepted medical methods of the early 1900s failed to do so. The diet involves promoting alkali and acid balance through consuming various foods and beverages, thereby lowering the kidney's involvement with blood pH balancing. Successful treatment for type II diabetes would reverse elevated glucose and insulin insensitivity problems throughout the body, especially in nerves and kidneys.[8]

Bright's disease was a plot point in one of the early Dr. Kildare films (1945, Between Two Women). Sally (Marie Blake), the hospital switchboard operator, falls ill to a mysterious aliment, and fearing it is cancer, avoids treatment until Dr. "Red" Adams (Van Johnson) correctly diagnoses it and heroically operates on her kidney.[9]

Robert S. Abbott, Founder of the "Chicago Defender" newspaper, died of the disease in 1940.<Profiles of Great African Americans by Consultant Charles R. Branham, Ph.D., Senior Historian, DuSable Museum of African American History Pg. 10>

James Gillespie Blaine, U.S. Representative, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator from Maine, two-time Secretary of State and nominee for president in 1884, developed Bright's disease and died in 1893.[10]

Arnold Ehret (1866–1922) a diet reformer, had cured himself of Bright's disease after he had been given up by medical doctors and after a nature cure could bring him only temporary relief. He discovered that fasting and a diet "free of mucus and albumin", consisting mainly of fruits cured not only his illness but other chronic disease.[12]